Steel & Ghostly Silhouettes

by John White
October, 2023

Today we had 21 shooters and 8 observers. We tied a record for most shooters ever. Now of those 21 shooters, 5! were first time ever shooting with us and we were missing at least 8 regulars today! What a great day for our group. So lets start off with a hearty thank you for everyones efforts and support to make this organization what it is. Growing and great to be a part of.

Our shoot today was our second to last shoot of the season. So our shooting season end is almost upon us, leaves are changing, the high school, college and pro football seasons are winding down as other family activities are in full swing getting ready for the holidays. We shot today on our primitive range and shot a qualifying target and steel targets to see if you all still got it. Many of you may have recognized it. Many of you did not.

The course of fire description and safety briefing started at 8:55 and the shoot 9:00am. The shots started popping off and the most incredible view occurred. With the berms, the slight coolness in the air, slight to no breeze, atmosphere, the air hung. It created the most dense grey blue fog of BP smoke any of us ever have seen at our shoots. It just hung there like a misty morning coming off a lake. Not so dense as to not see the targets but dense enough to create a haze over the entire range. Not sure if it was a combo of oiled barrels, cold barrels, loads but wow. It hung on for quite a while and made for a very unique opening volley of the shoot. It was almost a ghostly sign in honor of this Halloween time of year and maybe we shot some of the attached pic to create our unique fog.

We had our two shooting categories, off hand and bench to compete in classifications for fairness. We do not want to exclude anyone who wants to shoot with us but we will not compete against centerfire or scopes to be fair. Heck we had one bring his gun to work on and shoot. You do not have to shoot for score, just come and enjoy the day with fellow BP shooters.

We shot two relays, 10 shots each, patch and roundball, any caliber in these two shooting classifications. The classifications did not compete against each other for prizes.

First Relay:
10 shots at 50 yards. we shot steel hangers and swingers. 12″, 10″, 8″, and 6″ oval steel.

Second Relay:
10 shots at 25 yards, a qualifying paper target for 10 points max each shot. It was 10 silhouettes from shoulders to head of progressively smaller size to simulate increased distance out to 250 yards. Tough bugger of a target but yet a fair test for all ‘s marksmanship.

Both relays were added together for placement within your appropriate shooting category off hand or supported as always. So it was 74 degrees, a little to no breeze and sunny when we finished up our shooting.

Our Shoot Results were:
Off hand
Tie – 1st – Billy T.
Tie – 1st – William V. (First time shooter with us)
3rd – James W. (first time shooter with us)

Bench
1st – Charlie E.
2nd – Mike L.
3rd– Tim C.

Prizes were pork chops, pork roasts and bacon. Yummmmmm. Congrats to two of our first time shooters for their finish and welcome to all our first timers. We hope you had a great day of friendship and fellowship with us.

We finished up 21 shooters, practice shots galore, at least two dry-balls, one fail to load, one broke short starter, fixin’ flints at 11:50am. Very nice job folks. Prizes awarded, range cleaned up, guns basically cleaned, gear packed up, loaded in the transportation and gone by 12:30pm in time to get home for ball games and family activities. Focused and fun. We had a lot of great interaction today with help and razzing. All good. Congrats to all. You all showed me you still got it!

So we look forward to everyone coming and shooting with us at our next shoot Saturday, November 18th, the 3rd weekend in Saturday. We moved it up one week so as to not conflict with the holiday season and family time. Start time again by 9:00am. Goal to be done by noon. Look for further details in your emails in the next week or so.

Enjoy the video from the event below.